Variability of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) at 26°N and the design of the RAPID observing array
- 1National Oceanography Centre, Southampton, UK
- 2Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory, NOAA, Miami, FL, USA
- 3Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science, University of Miami, Miami, FL, USA
The time series of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation at 26°N has been extended to March 2020 and is now almost 16 years long. During the period from 2004 to 2008 the AMOC was c. 2.5 Sv stronger than in the following years. Since then, there has been significant interannual variability, but the AMOC has remained relatively weak compared with the first four years of observations. The design of the array was changed in 2020 so that continuous measurements are no longer made over the mid-Atlantic Ridge. In this presentation we examine the impact of this change on the accuracy of the RAPID timeseries. We find that, although the mid-Atlantic ridge measurements have been important in determining the mean structure of the overturning streamfunction, the impact upon the variability of the streamfunction maximum is very small.
How to cite: Smeed, D., Moat, B., Frajka-Williams, E., Rayner, D., Volkov, D., and Johns, W.: Variability of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) at 26°N and the design of the RAPID observing array, EGU General Assembly 2022, Vienna, Austria, 23–27 May 2022, EGU22-11850, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu22-11850, 2022.
